The fight to secure the beds, which are for the terminally ill, at Weybridge has now reached a crucial point following the results of a public consultation.

As the News & Mail reported last month, The Princess Alice Hospice had hoped to move the beds from the Church Street facility to Esher.

Yet North Surrey Primary Care Trust (PCT) opted to enter negotiations with Woking Hospice to fund the ten palliative care beds in the Sam Beare Unit Weybridge, and a public consultation held.

Jackie Roberts, a spokesman for the Friends of Weybridge Hospital said: “It is important to the community that we keep the beds at Weybridge so people don’t have to travel for miles to see their relatives.”

And Jimmy Adams who is actively involved in supporting Weybridge hospital said: “We were strongly in favour of the Woking Hospice bid.

“The Princess Alice Hospice bid was pretty poor and was not to the specifications that the PCT had given. Most important was the fact that the bid was based on housing the patients for four and a half days in total.

“Woking Hospice put in a bid of seven days.”

But Nicholas Ratsey, chief executive of Princess Alice said: “This bears no resemblance to anything that was mentioned in any of the meetings that I’ve been to or any of the literature that I’ve seen. On no occasion has it been mentioned that we only house patients for four and a half days. I believe this gentleman is referring to a completely different matter.”

The PCT was unable to finalise its decision until the results of the public consultation came in.

Members of the public, patient representatives and PCT staff debated the merits of developing up to 16 palliative care beds at Weybridge Hospital, supported by Woking Hospice, to serve the whole North Surrey area including Spelthorne.

The consultation concentrated on four other key areas, including creating a 24-hour primary care walk-in centre alongside the A&E department at St Peter’s Hospital and refocusing the walk-in centre at Weybridge to open Monday-Friday from 8am to 6pm, to offer treatment room services and minor injury care.

It also looked at creating an outpatients centre at Weybridge Hospital for the majority of West Elmbridge out-reach clinics and increasing capacity within primary and community care.

About 65 responses were received to the consultation, with the majority of people agreeing with the proposals.

The plans to refocus the walk-in centre at Weybridge met the most opposition with 11 people voting against it.